


World in My Eyes + Halo

by Miss_M



Series: J/B in Depeche Mode Key [8]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Depeche Mode
Genre: Angst, Comfort, End of the World, Established Relationship, F/M, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 18:39:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1236898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The journey I’m suggesting would be considerably less arduous,” Jaime says with his most charming smile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	World in My Eyes + Halo

**Author's Note:**

> These two songs go so well together. Lyrics can be found [here](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/depechemode/worldinmyeyes.html) and [here](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/depechemode/halo.html). I own nothing.

“The journey I’m suggesting would be considerably less arduous,” Jaime says with his most charming smile. 

Brienne is slumped in a comfortable chair as though bound and chained. She fought her way back from the Vale with empty hands and a plague-ravaged heart, her face the very image of what’s left of the Seven Kingdoms after years of war, famine, and Winter. And wights and Others, though Jaime is still having difficulty believing some of the stories trickling down from the North like burning pitch, turning every battle plan and contingency he has devised to cinders. 

Brienne looks up at him, her eyes pleading for release, for hope, mulish against his honeyed words, every inch his contrary wench. At least that is unchanged. The certainty comforts Jaime better than any carefully pondered strategy or merry fire in the grate, false reassurance against the Winter. 

His smile widens deliberately. Brienne blushes and looks away as his fingers describe vague, suggestive shapes in the air. “A special kind of journey, requiring no ship to brave storms or horse to be eaten by wolves from under you. From modest peaks to the _wettest_ depths, the length and breadth,” his fingers walk the air in front of her, nearly touching her, “and from freckle to freckle.”

“Jaime.” 

She wants to say yes, but she won’t, not yet. She must brace herself for the weight of it: casting what’s left of her honor to the winds again, helping him break his own vows, as though he ever needed help with that. To Brienne, armor is feather-light by comparison. She left her maidenhead in the Riverlands after Stoneheart and before they parted ways again, the quietest parting of Jaime’s life, and the most difficult. Worry for her gnawed at him worse than hunger and cold and the duties he assumed back at the capital, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard as well as Regent. 

Jaime still keeps the Lord Commander’s chambers out of stubborn pride. The thought of playing host to Brienne there, bedding her there, does not strike him as blasphemous or dishonorable, only right. 

He drops his hand, speaks to her in a warm voice, warm as he knows her body would feel. Still seducing her, but honestly this time, without pretending it will all end well. “Your bloody quest won’t wing away if you linger a sennight, Brienne. Let’s keep each other warm for a little while, then you can go back to trying to get yourself killed honorably and horribly.” 

She is gnawing on her lip, a girlish gesture though she is no longer a girl, let alone a maid. Jaime nearly kisses her then, scoops her out of her chair and into his bed, let her hesitation and scruples be damned. Her lips will undoubtedly taste of ashes and despair, grief and dust, but that is hardly a novel taste to Jaime. He waits, leaning against the fireplace, his good hand gripping empty air behind him, holding on to whatever resolve he has left in his fisted fingers. 

“I shall try Essos,” Brienne says at last, quietly, avoiding his eye. “There are rumors… years old now… I never believed them before, but maybe…” 

Her eyes are oceans, clear water raised up to him in cupped hands. Jaime allows himself to touch her then, lean down to where she sits and stroke her unmarred cheek with his living fingers. 

“You cannot have worse luck there than you’ve had so far, wench,” he says, so close Brienne shuts her eyes for a moment, his warm breath on her face. Jaime never noticed how long her eyelashes are before, palest gold, or maybe he forgot, his memories of her a stone worn smooth with frequent handling. “At least you’ll be well away from this thrice-damned place.” 

The question is in Brienne’s eyes, in her blush, but it stops just short of her lips. She will not ask him to go with her, abandon his vows and responsibilities to help shoulder hers. Not least because she knows how much his affection for her would tempt him, even more than his distaste for court life. She will not demand that of Jaime any more than he will try to prevent her from carrying on with her fool’s quest, for all that he will speak to her of little else as long as she tarries in King’s Landing. 

Jaime removes his fingers from her heating cheek, holds his hand out to her. “Come, my lady. Court life is not what it used to be, but I can still offer you some luxuries: goat’s cheese and fresh bread, hot water for a bath, and a bed with a man to warm it. Not much of a man, maybe, but the best I can provide.” 

Brienne cocks her eyebrows at him, his hair more silver than gold now, aged with duty and worry even more than years, and Jaime leers. The push and pull, the strike and parry of enticement and distance, teasing and sternness between them, untouched by fate or the seasons. Comfortable as an old pair of boots, softened with much use.

Brienne accepts his hand and rises. Jaime can see it all clearly now: how they will warm each other, how he will row with her to keep her there a day, a night, an hour longer, as though he could make the pale sun linger thereby. How he will kiss Brienne’s hand and smile at her when she leaves, feigning good cheer lest he add to her heavy burden of guilt. 

For a moment Jaime wants to startle her into surrender, wishes the latest rumors were true, of the Wall’s fall and a tide of the undead spreading south. He will not mention it to Brienne, will make sure to find her a ship with a not too disreputable captain to get her away. Better if she is eaten alive by her quest, far from him, than to stay and wait by his side for the North’s revenge to swallow them all and spit out their bones. 

Jaime sees all this like the future in the flames, a maegi’s blood magic, but it counts for less than the tiny certainty of what the night will bring: Brienne’s body and his, a fire, a bed, bread and cheese and sour wine on the table. Nothing else will be there between them, for them. Nothing will come of it, but Jaime has learned to take whatever chance and Winter blow his way. He has even learned to be grateful for as long as it lasts, the nothing in his arms, in Brienne’s gasps and whispered words, words of another life, boring and safe, filled with Summer and song and love, while icy winds rattle the windows of the White Sword Tower, certain to get in and turn them all to stone before long.


End file.
